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Patents: Pheromone frighteners

26 October 1991

By BARRY FOX

In British patent application 2 241 437, David Craddock of Twickenham
reveals how he has been using pheromones to make people pay their bill on
time.

Craddock tells how animals release pheromones, very faint smells which
other animals react to without realising it. He claims that people’s behaviour
patterns can be influenced by dosing paper with pheromones, typing on the
paper and then getting the subject to read it.

He experimented with sheets of paper impregnated with androgenic steroids,
known to stimulate a hormonal response causing aggression, threat or dominance.
He typed a large number of identical messages on treated sheets of paper,
and an equal number of identical messages on untreated paper. The messages
were then delivered to various addressees. Each message requested remittance
of an overdue debt.

Craddock claims that more of the people who received treated paper paid
bills than those who received untreated paper.